Once Upon a Wedding Night Read online

  He lifted his head from his hands to look at her through bloodshot eyes. “Your word does not amount to much in my estimation.”

  She ignored the affront to her honor. It was to be expected, even deserved. Still, she had to try to persuade him.

  “Surely arranging a Season is a great deal of inconvenience for you. You don’t need that aggravation.”

  The corners of his mouth lifted in a smirk. “How kind of you to look out for my sensibilities. You are a true altruist. But to rid myself of you permanently is worth a few months of inconvenience.” He once again dropped his head into his palms. “If you’re going to drive some man mad, it should at least be your husband. He has the legal right to beat you.”

  She inhaled, groping for patience. “I realize I don’t deserve your trust.” Meredith swallowed past the pride sticking in her throat, moving on to say, “But I have no reason to further trouble you—”

  “You never did to begin with.” His voice sounded weary, contemptuous. “You are the worst kind of liar. You justify your actions. If you see a need, your arrogance precludes you from ever considering that there may be an alternative aside from your scheming and manipulations.”

  Heat climbed up her throat to her cheeks. Was she as selfish as all that? Had her deceit been so unforgivable? No. She refused to believe it. He simply did not understand her motives. She had been desperate and afraid and concerned for the lives of others, not just her herself.

  But you did want a baby, a small voice in the back of her mind reminded. She ignored that voice to focus on her current battle for freedom. Later, she could examine whether she was as selfish as he claimed.

  “And what of you? You have no qualms about sitting back, snapping your fingers and commanding me to marry. This is why I lied to begin with. I feared you would barge in here like some tyrant and start ordering my life to suit yourself with no consideration for me and those depending upon me.” She stamped her foot on the carpet. “I don’t want to marry. But that is of no consequence to you, is it? It’s about what is easiest for you.” Breathless, she waited, watching him closely, praying he would reconsider.

  “You will marry.” He shrugged, apparently unmoved by her outburst.

  One look at his rigid expression, the inflexible set of his jaw, and she knew there would be no changing his mind.

  “Take comfort,” he said, the flippant quality of his voice grating her already frayed nerves. “You are only subject to my tyranny until that blessed event. So make the best of your choice. As you say, it is your life.” He rose to his feet, stopping and clutching his head as though dizzy before striding from the library.

  She hugged herself, terror filling her at the prospect of marrying again. Her heart couldn’t take another rejection like Edmund’s. Then and there she resolved to use her head and not her heart. There would be no illusions this time around and little in the way of expectations. She would pick a sensible, boring man. And her heart would be safe.

  Chapter 13

  A brief inconvenience. Nick sourly recalled Miss Eleanor’s words as he stood in the pouring rain on the steps of the Derring’s Mayfair mansion. The butler regarded him as if he were a bug to be scraped from the bottom of his shoe, not bothering to invite him inside the foyer.

  “Your card, sir?” the butler intoned for the second time, his haughty accents even more disdainful than when he first asked.

  “I already told you, I don’t have a card—”

  “Then I am sorry, sir,” the butler cut in, his icy regard indicating he was anything but apologetic. “No one gains entrance without a card. And if you should acquire a card and Her Grace agrees to see you—” The butler sniffed disdainfully, the fellow’s eyes raking him with great skepticism at this possibility. “Her Grace receives only on Tuesdays and Thursdays from two to four.”

  Nick raised his voice against the rain’s increasing volume. “How about I just tell you my name, and you can pretend you’re reading it off a card.”

  “I am sorry, sir—”

  Nick’s patience snapped. “What’s your name?”

  “My name?” The butler blinked. Had no one seeking entrance to Her Grace’s lofty residence ever inquired his name before? “Finch, sir.”

  “Well, Finch, I’m Nick Caulfield. Remember it, because I’m the one who owns the house you’re standing in and everything else Lady Derring’s grandson has gambled away. Now, unless you want me for your new employer instead of Lady D, you’ll grant me an audience with her ladyship, and we’ll see what she can do to salvage the fine mess her grandson has made of the family’s fortune…or should I say lack of fortune?”

  Finch held silent a long moment, the steady beat of rain the only sound. Even with rain sluicing down his face and obscuring his vision, Nick suffered the butler’s intent regard without blinking. At last Finch stood aside. “May I take your coat, sir?”

  “Thank you.” He stepped into the expansive foyer and shrugged out of his coat, wiping ineffectually at his face with his hands in an effort to dry it.

  “Follow me, please.”

  He followed the butler to the drawing room, leaving puddles in his wake on the Italian marble floor.

  “Her ladyship shall be with you momentarily.” Finch closed the doors behind him with a click.

  Nick strode to the fire and extended his hands to its warmth. A small noise prompted him to glance over his shoulder. The tall doors were still closed and an empty room stared back. Delicate furniture of pastel shades crowded the room, save for a single oversized chair with a fat cushion—undoubtedly reserved for guests of substantial girth. Numerous figurines stared at him in silence from various surfaces. Shrugging, he turned back to the fire.

  “Who are you?” a voice asked so softly that he could have imagined it.

  He whirled back around, wondering if he had in fact imagined the question when he did not immediately see anyone.

  “I asked who you are.” This time the whisper took on an imperious tone.

  His eyes landed on a wide pair of bespectacled eyes peering over the top of the pianoforte. It was a girl, no more than sixteen and quite plain, dressed in a gown an atrocious shade of daffodil yellow. Her midnight dark hair made the bright yellow of her gown all the more blinding. The dress possessed too many flounces and ruffles for her slight frame. He suspected the flounces on the bodice were an attempt to disguise a flat chest.

  “Nicholas Caulfield.”

  “I’ve never heard of you,” she replied, rising until she stood behind the pianoforte and no longer crouched.

  “No surprise.” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Why are you hiding?”

  “I’m hiding from Mr. Humphrey.”

  “Who is Mr. Humphrey?” he inquired, his voice lowering in a whisper to match hers.

  “My dance instructor, but he is simply beastly.” Her hands fluttered about her in distress. “He raps my knuckles as if I were a child when I miss a step.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “A bit old to have your knuckles rapped, I should think.” He folded his hands together behind his back.

  “My sentiments precisely.” She nodded, her spectacles slipping down the bridge of her slim nose. “But I am to have my come out this year, so my dance lessons have increased to three times a week instead of once. Not that it shall implant the amount of grace needed to satisfy my grandmother.” She sighed, then eyed him speculatively. “I know all gentlemen of my grandmother’s acquaintance, especially the young ones. Grandmother sees to that. You’re in her drawing room, therefore I should know of you.”

  “I’m not the type of man she would introduce to you.”

  “Then you’re probably the type of gentleman I want to meet.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “What’s your name?”

  “Portia. But please be quiet.” She wagged a finger over her lips a bit desperately. “I don’t want them to find me.”

  “Forgive me.” He smiled at
the precocious girl.

  “What business is it you have with my grandmother?”

  Nosy too, he noted. “I’m afraid that is private.”

  She gave a world-weary sigh. “Then I’m certain it has to do with Bertram.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The only thing that could be considered private is that my brother has ruined the family fortune, but then everyone knows, so that isn’t really private, is it?” She cocked her head.

  “You’re quite the clever girl,” Nick mused, nodding his head approvingly.

  “Yes, my greatest flaw, or so my grandmother tells me.” She suddenly smiled, revealing a pair of dimples that made her appear almost pretty. “It is also open knowledge that the family is counting on me to nab a rich husband to save us.”

  “Quite a burden to bear,” he murmured.

  “Indeed, especially since my looks are not to be counted upon, or so Grandmother tells me. And, as you said, I’m clever.” Another sigh. Yet despite the sigh, he sensed she did not despair over her lack of beauty, only the disappointment it caused her grandmother.

  “And what is wrong with being clever?”

  “It’s not a trait gentlemen care for in a wife, or so Grandmother tells me.”

  “Tell me something. Do most of your sentences end with ‘or so Grandmother tells me’?”

  The girl laughed, but quickly slapped a hand over her mouth to suppress the noise. Through parted fingers, she whispered, “Clearly you have not made my grandmother’s acquaintance. You will understand once you do. Most people regard her as something of a tyrant.”

  “Ah, then it’s no wonder you refer to her so deferentially.” He nodded in sympathy.

  The girl indicated her agreement with a solemn nod of her own.

  “More than good looks can attract a gentleman.” He felt compelled to encourage the gangly girl.

  “Really good-looking people always say that,” she retorted with a good deal of cheek for one of such tender years.

  Before he could respond to that piquant remark, the door opened. Portia ducked back behind the pianoforte just as her grandmother grandly entered the room.

  The dowager duchess did not so much as glance at him until she settled on a chaise. Then, with both hands knotted about the top of her silver-headed cane, she leveled an icy glare on him, her wide nostrils flaring. “What’s this I hear? You presume to claim ownership of this house, man?”

  “Point in fact, I do.” He patted his waistcoat. “I have vouchers from your grandson if you would care to see them.”

  At that pronouncement, the dowager lost some of her haughtiness and suddenly looked just like she was—an old woman.

  “Bertram,” she muttered, flexing her fingers on her cane. “He’ll be the death of me.”

  “He is quite possibly the worse gambler I have ever encountered. Perhaps he should find another pursuit for his time. Some gentlemen like the hunt, I understand.”

  The lady’s haughtiness returned in a flash. In ringing tones she replied, “I assure you my grandson has a new occupation and that is to wed an heiress. With his title, that should not be difficult. My granddaughter should soon make a match as well. No doubt you will charge an exorbitant interest, but we shall pay our debts to you, Mr. Caulfield.” She muttered his name as if it dirtied her tongue. “In the meantime, I would appreciate it if you would not call upon me in my home again. You may hold those vouchers in your pocket, but I have powerful friends, and I will not stand for your bullying tactics—”

  “What if I said I would be willing to waive all debts?”

  She shut her mouth and squinted pale blue eyes at him. Over her shoulder, Portia popped her dark head up from behind the chaise, her spectacles askew on her surprised face. Somehow the girl had crawled from behind the pianoforte and managed to position herself behind the chaise her grandmother occupied. His mouth twitched with amusement.

  “I would say such a gesture does not stem from your innate sense of generosity.” Suspicion laced her voice. “What is it you want?”

  “A favor.”

  She studied him warily. “Have out with it.”

  “I need you to sponsor my half brother’s widow this season.”

  Lady Derring puffed herself out, expanding her generous bosom. “I don’t sponsor just any chit. Do you know how many girls have vied for my sponsorship? Who is this woman? How shall I know she won’t embarrass me in front of the ton?”

  “She was raised a gentlewoman—”

  “But she married a relation of yours?” the dowager interrupted, disdain and skepticism writ across her countenance. “She can hardly be suitable to move about in Good Society.”

  Clearly, the lady thought he had crawled out of some hole and could not possibly be respectable, nor could any member of his family.

  “I don’t see why not. My brother was an earl.”

  It was somewhat satisfying to deliver that bit of news and observe the dowager’s small blue eyes bulge out of her fat cheeks. At least the title carried some rewards. Leaving the pretentious dowager dumbfounded gratified him.

  “You’re jesting. If your brother was an earl then you’re—”

  “Titled? Yes. I am the new earl.”

  He grimaced in the face of her open transformation from wary foe to agreeable hostess. In seconds he had become worthy, estimable…someone deserving of her company.

  “Caulfield…Caulfield.” She muttered the name to herself several times, tapping her cane on the floor as she scanned her memory. He waited.

  At last he decided to help her out. “My brother was Edmund Caulfield, the Earl of Brookshire.”

  “Ah, yes. The recluse. He never went about Town much.” Her eyes alighted with sudden recollection. “But his father created quite a scandal in his day, marrying an Italian opera singer and then divorcing her—” She ceased her prattling and inhaled sharply, her shrewd eyes suddenly bright with understanding as they absorbed his swarthy good looks.

  “Now it comes together?” he asked, one corner of his mouth quirking.

  “Quite so,” she murmured. “Now, about this sister-in-law. Anything I should know about her should I agree to do this? And I do mean should.”

  Where to begin? By explaining that she was a lying, devious conniver who would go to any lengths to get her way? That might raise her in the dowager’s estimation.

  “She is quite unassuming, having lived her whole life in the country. She’ll have a respectable dowry, I’ll see to that. You just see that she gets a husband. I’ll send her to you before the start of the Season so that you may prepare her as you see fit.”

  “What of her looks?”

  Lovely hair and a wide, lush mouth flashed in his mind. He brushed the images aside and waved his hand dismissively. “Unremarkable.”

  “Another wallflower,” she sighed. At that comment, Portia popped her head up and stuck her tongue out at the back of her grandmother’s head. Apparently the girl was acquainted with that unflattering application.

  He suppressed his laughter, not wanting to give the girl’s presence away. “I trust you’ll see to the arrangements. Naturally, I am not equipped to introduce a young woman to Society, which is why I require your assistance, my lady.”

  “If she has not been presented, that shall have to be rectified before she can make the rounds.” She snorted in disapproval. “Though why the wife of an earl would not already have been presented at court is beyond my comprehension.”

  “As I said, she is from the country and not savvy with the fine points of Town Society.” Something, he admitted, he had found to her merit.

  “I suppose I will take her on, but I’ll have those vouchers.” She extended a bejeweled hand and wiggled her pudgy fingers.

  He patted the front of his jacket. “Not until Lady Brookshire has accepted an offer of marriage.”

  “You surely jest.” The dowager dropped her hand. “This is based on whether she actually snares a husband. I can only guide and point
her in the right direction. Whether or not a suitable gentleman proposes is out of my hands.”

  “I want to make sure you put forth your best effort, my lady. I’d hate for you to be too focused on the marriage prospects of your own grandchildren that you neglect Lady Brookshire’s matrimonial needs.” He met her outraged gaze. “I don’t want her to simply enjoy a Season; I want her affianced and wed by the end of it. Let her become some other poor clod’s responsibility. Understood?”

  “I am not a magician, but I understand your desires. Now, know mine. You are an earl.” She leaned forward, her wily eyes intent. “And as such, imminently respectable. Not to mention wealthy and handsome.”

  He raised a dark brow in amusement. “Moments ago I couldn’t even gain entrance without threatening the butler.”

  She fluttered a hand to silence him. “Clearly, you possess wealth through your own earnings, but with your newly acquired inheritance, I cannot fathom how deep your pocket goes. The ton will be standing in line to introduce its daughters to you. With your title, you will be the most sought after bachelor of the Season.”

  He shuddered. “Thank you, but I have no intention of attending soirees where nobles can pelt their daughters at me.”

  “That is where you are mistaken. If I am to do this, I will need your cooperation. Your attendance at key functions this Season is crucial.”

  Dread gnawed at the pit of his stomach. “Crucial?” He shook his head stubbornly. “How?” He had envisioned himself ensconced snugly before his fire while Meredith paraded through the Season under the vigilant eye of Lady Derring, comfortable with the knowledge that in due course she would land herself a vapid, watery-eyed second or third son with whom she would wed and retire to some far corner of England, never to be heard from again. He didn’t need to play the nobleman and waltz with every insipid debutante to ever flutter her eyes.

  “Your presence is vital to successfully marry your sister-in-law. That is what you want after all, is it not?”

  “Explain why my participation is necessary,” Nick insisted, needing to be convinced before he subjected himself to the torture of a London Season.